Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are expected to call Tuesday for a new international push to end the war in Syria, but are divided on whether to threaten new sanctions or other tough measures to pressure Russia over its support of President Bashar Assad. The G-7 blames Assad’s military for a deadly chemical...

Rex Tillerson’s seemingly cozy ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin drew bipartisan alarm and nearly derailed his confirmation as secretary of state.But some three months later, as the former ExxonMobil CEO heads to Moscow on his first trip as America’s top diplomat, it’s hard to believe Russian President Vladimir Putin...

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is heading to Moscow for talks Wednesday with Russian leaders amid a spike in tensions over attacks in Syria. Tillerson accused Moscow of complicity or incompetence in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, while Russia called the U.S. response, a missile...

The Trump administration must decide by the end of this month whether to grant Belarus continued relief from U.S. economic sanctions despite a stiff government crackdown on street demonstrations last month. The renewal decision is considered a low-level priority for the administration, which is facing bigger questions about U.S. relations with...

Hungary’s right-wing president has signed controversial legislation on foreign universities that critics warn could force the closure of a top international institution founded by U.S. financier George Soros. The approval Monday by President Janos Ader came less than a day after tens of thousands of protesters rallied in central Budapest...

For many of us who were in the United States government in 2013, when the images of women and children writhing in pain in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta first brought the United States to the brink of airstrikes against the Syrian government, watching as 59 Tomahawk missiles were fired into a regime airbase in Homs was at once cathartic and not...

I wrote my first response to the U.S. cruise missile attack on Shayrat Air Base on April 7, 2017, at 2:30 p.m. EDT—in other words, about 18 hours after the attack. A great deal more has happened since, and it is in the nature of a crisis that this be so. One of the characteristics that make a crisis a crisis is that decision-makers on all sides...

Dave Majumdar Security, Middle East Could it happen? While anti-ship missiles get a lot of attention, submarine launched torpedoes are arguably a much more dangerous threat to U.S. Navy surface warships. Perhaps the most dangerous torpedoes that the Navy might encounter are high-performance Russian-made wake homing torpedoes. Wake-homing...

Unexploded bombs, mines, and booby-traps litter the fields of eastern Ukraine — an unmapped and deadly hazard not only for soldiers, but also farmers and other civilians. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service) …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...